Saturday, 19 August 2006
Day 13 - Jaguar Logic in night-time drama
he wind always seems to follow us and head us again. This was not helped by the fact all the way up the western coast with the wind on the nose everyone was hoping for a bit of a spinnaker run back home. Spirits are still high although it is obvious that tiredness is starting to creep into everything a little more.
As I mentioned yesterday was an eventful day and it kept everyone on their toes. At lunch time we were having a lovely sail on a beam to broad reach in about 20 knots of breeze, it was perfect. I made the call to hoist the spinnaker because although we might have to bear away 10* the extra speed would give us a better VMG. Not to mention the smile factor of sailing at around 11 knots. This was short lived about 20 mins after the hoist the wind veered pushing us off course even more and increased to over 30 so we dropped. The smiles were still big as we were doing around 9 knots in the right direction under white sails surfing at 10.5 knots. A few hours later the wind died and it was time to put up the #1 genoa as we were dropping the sail the halyard snapped about a meter from the top and fell back down through the mast, bugger. Well surprise surprise the wind increased again time for the #3, fairly standard stuff for offshore racing. In the mean time while easing the main sheet Mick slipped banging his back putting him out of action. Dr Jon says he should be fine but needs to rest and no jarring, not easily done on a 38’ race boat.
At about 0115 I awoke to a lot of muttering on deck followed by Peter coming down tapping me on the shoulder saying the #3 is jammed at the top of the mast not going up or down. With the wind around 10 knots we needed it down and the #1 up. There was only one thing for it someone had to go up to see what the problem was. Peter very kindly volunteered and got harnessed up ready to go. We had to bear away to make it more comfortable and safer for him to go up. At the top he called back down to say the halyard had come off the pulley and was now jammed between the mast and the pulley and he was
unable to free it. He swopped it with another halyard and came down. Two
halyards down and only two left. We are going to have to be even more careful. It was now 0345 the slowest headsail change in history was now complete only 2 ½ hours of sailing in the wrong direction.
Everything is sorted now I hope and we are all ready and raring to go again but very much looking forward to getting to the finish line.
Regards Pete
As I mentioned yesterday was an eventful day and it kept everyone on their toes. At lunch time we were having a lovely sail on a beam to broad reach in about 20 knots of breeze, it was perfect. I made the call to hoist the spinnaker because although we might have to bear away 10* the extra speed would give us a better VMG. Not to mention the smile factor of sailing at around 11 knots. This was short lived about 20 mins after the hoist the wind veered pushing us off course even more and increased to over 30 so we dropped. The smiles were still big as we were doing around 9 knots in the right direction under white sails surfing at 10.5 knots. A few hours later the wind died and it was time to put up the #1 genoa as we were dropping the sail the halyard snapped about a meter from the top and fell back down through the mast, bugger. Well surprise surprise the wind increased again time for the #3, fairly standard stuff for offshore racing. In the mean time while easing the main sheet Mick slipped banging his back putting him out of action. Dr Jon says he should be fine but needs to rest and no jarring, not easily done on a 38’ race boat.
At about 0115 I awoke to a lot of muttering on deck followed by Peter coming down tapping me on the shoulder saying the #3 is jammed at the top of the mast not going up or down. With the wind around 10 knots we needed it down and the #1 up. There was only one thing for it someone had to go up to see what the problem was. Peter very kindly volunteered and got harnessed up ready to go. We had to bear away to make it more comfortable and safer for him to go up. At the top he called back down to say the halyard had come off the pulley and was now jammed between the mast and the pulley and he was
unable to free it. He swopped it with another halyard and came down. Two
halyards down and only two left. We are going to have to be even more careful. It was now 0345 the slowest headsail change in history was now complete only 2 ½ hours of sailing in the wrong direction.
Everything is sorted now I hope and we are all ready and raring to go again but very much looking forward to getting to the finish line.
Regards Pete
posted by Sailing Logic at 11:46 AM
